Hello dearest readers, I'm just adding a note here to say that I'm taking a bit of a winter vacation. I'll be back in the new year with more Critical Future's stories, but in the mean time, visit tychoish.com and be well. -- tycho garen

After Earth, Part 1

A Trailing Edge story, by tycho garen
on 29th July 2008. (commentary)

This is the first installment in the second sequence of the Trailing Edge story. I once again leave you in the very capable hands of Mr. Leon Winter.

So here I am, sitting here, on a bench in an urban park in the Marrakesh Dome, on Earth. It seems so quaint to sit on a bench and wait for someone to come by with a file, a physical record. I deal with a lot of files but they’re never really physical, and they never take this long to arrive. But I’m in no particular hurry.

The massive dome that still encases the city clashes somehow with all of the stone masonry that predates the dome by a millennia and some change. You could almost smell the age of this place, it was easy to get lost in the history and just sit and watch time pass. That wasn’t such a bad thing: despite the general ruin, I never felt more alive and connected as I did here. That clash probably kept most people away from Earth, though: stewing in the middle of so much history–and an often unpleasant history at that–can turn the stomach. And yet I keep coming back.

Not many of us come to Earth any more, sure some people still live here–I couldn’t fathom more than ten million world wide, probably less, and all under the domes. Most of the people left in the system were born off world–myself included–and are used to a lighter gravity. But I’ve been coming pretty regularly for more years than I really want to talk about, and by now I have friends that I enjoy seeing that expect me to visit. I like to see how the people are doing pretty regularly: for a world that is supposedly so degraded, the places and faces of Earth society change very fast quickly.

Most importantly, it was in the way. It helped that I was, as they say, “in the neighborhood.”

The domes were built over the mega-cities to consolidate populations when it became clear that the ozone layer was a lost cause, but the exoduses started soon after, and as a result all the domes seemed too big and too empty and too far apart. It was a big planet and while there were raw materials Earthside that you couldn’t mine space or Titan for, but there were fewer and fewer of them and thanks to automation, no one had to make the trip unless they wanted.

With the exodus, the new habitats throughout the solar system and a few hundred years to detach it was like Earth had become impractical: too much space, not enough infrastructure, and enough history and guilt to make it downright uncomfortable for most.

Why then, am I on Earth? Funny you should ask…

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  1. [...] is the second installment in the second sequence of the Trailing Edge story. Read part one here. I once again leave you in the very capable hands of Mr. Leon [...]

    Pingback by Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review — 30 July 2008 @ 6:57 am

  2. [...] is the second installment in the second sequence of the Trailing Edge story. Read part one here, or part two. I once again leave you in the very capable hands of Mr. Leon [...]

    Pingback by Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review — 31 July 2008 @ 7:59 am

  3. [...] is the third installment in the second sequence of the Trailing Edge story. Read part one here, part two or part three. I once again leave you in the very capable hands of Mr. Leon [...]

    Pingback by Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review — 1 August 2008 @ 8:01 am

  4. [...] is the fifth and final installment in the second sequence of the Trailing Edge story. Read part one, part two, part three, and part four. I once again leave you in the very capable hands of Mr. Leon [...]

    Pingback by Critical Futures: a next wave science fiction review — 4 August 2008 @ 5:17 am

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